Genetics of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) in a Ghanaian population

Plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1), a major modulator of the fibrinolytic system, is an important factor in cardiovascular disease (CVD) susceptibility and severity. PAI-1 is highly heritable, but the few genes associated with it explain only a small portion of its variation. Studies of PAI-1 typically employ linear regression to estimate the effects of genetic variants on PAI-1 levels, but PAI-1 is not normally distributed, even after transformation. Therefore, alternative statistical methods may provide greater power to identify important genetic variants. Additionally, most genetic studies of PAI-1 have been performed on populations of European descent, limiting the generalizability of their results. We analyzed >30,000 variants for association with PAI-1 in a Ghanaian population, using median regression, a non-parametric alternative to linear regression. Three variants associated with median PAI-1, the most significant of which was in the gene arylsulfatase B (ARSB) (p = 1...